Forest Glen school puts bikes in classrooms for students

Forest Glen elementary school in Moncton has put stationary bicycles in all of its classrooms as a way to help students focus.

Students have an opportunity to use one of the Spark bikes to burn off energy in the clasroom.

"They're able to go on the bike, get some energy out, clear their head a little bit," said Grade 4 teacher Heather Hollett. "And then they're able to be better focused and be more efficient in their work."

Hollett says the more the students use the bike, the more their productivity increases. She points to one student who used to just write a few words in a 30-minute writing class before starting to use the bike.

"The student was able to write between 120 and 150 words just because of that five minutes that they took at the beginning of writers' workshop to wake themselves up a bit, to clear their head, become less anxious and they were able to better focus," said Hollett.

Grade 4 student Kennedy Apthrop is one of the students who is using the classroom bike.

"[It] helps me when I'm tired and helps me wake up and stuff."

Grade 1 teacher Candace Douglass admits she was skeptical at first and thought the students might fight over the bike.

"The kids love it, they use it, it hardly ever causes fights, and I've really seen a difference in the students ability," she said.

The school had three of the bicycles to try out last year. Teachers and students liked them so much they raised $9,000 to put one in each of the school's 15 classrooms.